Peter Black's Freedom to Differ

Roger Avary's tweets get him into (more) trouble

On Tuesday I blogged about how Hollywood scriptwriter and director Roger Avary was tweeting from prison (see here).  However, in a curious turn of events, it now turns out that maybe he wasn't in prison at all.  Gawker has the story:

McMilian's blog post led authorities to realize that Roger Avary wasn't in prison at all. Rather, he had somehow ended up on a work furlough program, which allowed him to hold a day job and merely bunk up at night with fellow furloughees. This is both not the hardscrabble prison life everyone thought @avary was describing, nor the prison sentence Roger Avary was supposed to be serving. So guy got nabbed and they sent him to real prison, prompting @avary to tweet:

LAT is preoccupied with how Avary ended up in furlough instead of jail, but what I want to know is, (1) Was @avary faking his prison badassery, since he was never in prison in the first place? (2) If so, was it a ploy to make us think he is irrepressibly hip and A Clockwork Orange-y? Because that would be pretty lame. (3) Alternately: Is the jailhouse equivalent of a work-study program actually as disgusting and terrifying as I always imagined real prison to be? Meaning @avary wasn't trying to deceive, it's just that we soft-bottomed media folks foolishly assumed that his scary tweets were from the belly of the beast, when in fact they represent a relatively pleasant penal existence, and when @avary gets to real prison it's going to get really crazy.

Read more here. 

Inside Insiders

Every Sunday I've been posting a short weekly comment on Australian politics, following the ABC's Sunday morning political chat show, Insiders.  Given the dramatic events this week surrounding the proposed emissions trading scheme (ETS) and the implosion of the Liberal Party, this week's podcast is a little bit longer than my previous podcasts.  So if you do decide to listen, I hope I don't bore you too much.  Anyway, here is this week's podcast:

Real people on Twitter for #followfriday

Following the lead of my friend Kate Carruthers, I now post to my blog each Friday five real people I am recommending as part of #followfriday on Twitter.  I like this approach as it makes the #followfriday suggestions more personal and allows an opportunity for me to (briefly) explain why I am suggesting each person. 

Today's #followfriday recommendations are all Australian political journalists.  This week the Australian Liberal Party has collapsed over the issue of global warming and whether to support the Rudd Government's emissions trading scheme (ETS) before the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference next month, and the best way to stay on top of the fast-moving political maneuvering has been Twitter.

I followed these political machinations with the assistance of a Twitter list I put together of Australian journalists who cover Federal politics.  You can follow that list here.

However, if you don't want to follow that list, here are five Australian political journalists who have been breaking the news on Twitter this week:

@latikambourke is a political journalist in Canberra for 2UE radio.

@jamesmassola is a journalist for the Canberra Times.

@samanthamaiden is online political editor for The Australian.

@mishaschubert is a political correspondent for The Age.

@David_Speers is the political editor for Sky News.

Once again, you can follow these five plus many more on Twitter list I put together of Australian journalists who cover Federal politics. 

Also, I have added those five to my ##followfriday list (a list which contains all of my #followfriday recommendations).

Following the lead of my friend Kate Carruthers, I now post to my blog each Friday five real people I am recommending as part of #followfriday on Twitter.  I like this approach as it makes the #followfriday suggestions more personal and allows an opportunity for me to (briefly) explain why I am suggesting each person. 

Today's #followfriday recommendations are all Australian political journalists.  This week the Australian Liberal Party has collapsed over the issue of global warming and whether to support the Rudd Government's emissions trading scheme (ETS) before the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference next month, and the best way to stay on top of the fast-moving political maneuvering has been Twitter.

I followed these political machinations with the assistance of a Twitter list I put together of Australian journalists who cover Federal politics.  You can follow that list here.

However, if you don't want to follow that list, here are five Australian political journalists who have been breaking the news on Twitter this week:

@latikambourke is a political journalist in Canberra for 2UE radio.

@jamesmassola is a journalist for the Canberra Times.

@samanthamaiden is online political editor for The Australian.

@mishaschubert is a political correspondent for The Age.

@David_Speers is the political editor for Sky News.

Once again, you can follow these five plus many more on Twitter list I put together of Australian journalists who cover Federal politics. 

Also, I have added those five to my ##followfriday list (a list which contains all of my #followfriday recommendations).

Australian politics, the media and Twitter

Scott Bridges has a good story on Crikey about how the news yesterday of what was taking place inside the Coalition's party room meeting on the ETS was reported first on Twitter:

Last night, as the coalition’s ETS party room meeting stretched into its eighth hour, there were hordes of people around Australia desperate to know the outcome of their ETS debate along with the status of Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership. But where to turn? The newspapers were 18 hours old and the new ones six hours away, there were no up-to-date stories on the papers’ websites, and there was nothing on the telly for non-cable subscribers (after 7.30 Report finished).

Thank goodness for Twitter.

Throughout last night’s political drama and excitement, on Twitter via iPhone and BlackBerry from the halls of APH, were several of the nation’s leading mainstream media political journalists tapping away at their micro keyboards to ensure that the Twitterverse was the most informed cohort of political observers in Australia. Thanks to Twitter and those social media-savvy journos, thousands upon thousands of Australians learned about the goings-on in the opposition party room literally hours before anyone else, making (for a short while at least) traditional news channels redundant.

Read more here.

As I was following the breaking news on Twitter last night (and again this afternoon), I put together a Twitter list of Australian journalists who cover Federal politics.  You can follow that list here.

Avatar

I'm getting very excited about director James Cameron's upcoming sci-if action extravaganza, Avatar.  I love all of his previous movies (yes, including Titanic), so I can't wait to see what he has in store for us.

My excitement intensified today when I came across the official Avatar Adobe AIR app/interactive trailer.  Mashable describes it in this way:

Billed as the “Official Avatar Interactive Trailer,” the AIR program brings Avatar’s Pandora natives straight to your desktop. Not only does it house all of the already-released Avatar trailers, but it includes dozens of video shorts that go in-depth into the making of the movie and the background of the main characters.

Now for the interactive part: whenever you watch a trailer, special “hotspots” will come up where you can learn more about the characters. Even cooler though is the integration of Avatar’s Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube feeds. You can get all of the latest news right from the interactive trailer.

Honestly? We’re very impressed with Avatar’s app. It’s slick, easy to use, and chock-full of content. If this doesn’t fulfill your need for an Avatar fix, then nothing but the actual movie will.

Download it here.

If this isn't for you, here are a few more Avatar promotional videos.

The trailer:

James Cameron's Vision Featurette:

CNN interview with James Cameron:

Tweeting from prison

The Telegraph reports that Hollywood scriptwriter and director Roger Avary is tweeting from prison while he is serving time for manslaughter:

Roger Avary, who received an Academy Award for Pulp Fiction, is posting daily tweets with grim, sometimes poignant tales of prison life.

Avary was sentenced to serve a year behind bars in October after admitting causing a car crash that killed his passenger and injured his wife.

Since then the @avary account on Twitter has been updated more than 20 times with tweets apparently chronicling his days inside Ventura County Jail in California.

While the authenticity of the account has not been verified, a friend and former colleague Neil Gaiman recently posted a tweet identifying the tweeter as the incarcerated Avary. He wrote: "It's riveting, horrible strange. Jail in 140 character lumps."

Avary's tweets, if genuine, point to a grinding prison regime enlivened by occasional crises.

Here are some of his tweets:

You can follow his stream here.

Academia

Melissa Gregg has an excellent piece in New Matilda today "Why Academia Is No Longer A Smart Choice".  Although I would encourage you to read the whole article, here is an extract:

So often the perception of university life in Australia is a cosy existence involving luxurious philosophical debates, long holidays and international sabbaticals.

The reality is far less glamorous.

The past 10 years has seen an escalation of requirements for entry-level jobs so great that starting positions aren't even advertised. The over-supply of PhD graduates has made competition so fierce for tenured positions that casual contracts have replaced ongoing junior positions. Our best graduates, fresh from the biggest challenge higher education can throw at them, face their most energetic years vying for the privilege of this state of insecurity.

...

For those who do succeed in getting a foot in the door in academia, the news isn't much better.

A recent survey of academics at one Sydney university showed a 100 per cent response rate when asked if they worked on weekends. My own research in the past few years has shown how tenured life involves a never-ending series of online administrative tasks that consume work and home life. All too rarely are these duties punctuated with face-to-face contact with colleagues and students — often the principal motivation for scholars to aspire to the job in the first place.

Branding strategies, overseas campuses, international recruitment and research outputs are the operational priorities for Australian universities. This leaves the value of teaching ambiguous at best, since prestige comes from winning grants that absolve senior scholars from teaching undergraduates.

...

The contradiction at the heart of today's universities is the expectation that employees will uphold the ideals of scholarship in tandem with commercial values, and that they will do this in every area of their working life except pay. Is it any wonder that our peers our leaving for other professions?

...

As scholars, we are tired of seeing good people leave the industry broken by its demanding and ever-moving goal posts. When a government promises an education revolution, it needs to make sure it has a strong frontline.

For over a decade a generation of graduates have been told to wait for Baby Boomers to retire to begin our lives as professionals, as home-owners, as people with families, as people who might want to have weekends. So many of our smartest friends have already seen through this infinitely suspended promise.

A great amount of talent will be lost if our energy, ideas and hopes are ignored any longer.

Read the full piece here.

How I demonstrate that I am both busy and important

Inspired by an anonymous blogger at Grad Hacker, who offered some “advice” on “How to Act Productive”, feminist law blogger Bridget Crawford put together a list for law professors, "Tips for Conveying How Busy and Important You Are".  Here are some highlights:

• Tip #1:  Walk fast when on campus and explain to colleagues that you cannot go out to lunch because you are busy responding to law review editors’ comments on your manuscript.
• Tip #2:  Remind your colleagues how many students you teach, how many exams you have to grade, how frightfully many hours it will take you to grade them, and how grading exams really cuts down the time you can be available for scholarship, service activities, friends or family.
• Tip #5: Get ticked off and behave badly at faculty meetings.
• Tip #7: Make sure you tell students and administrators, “Now is not a good time.”
• Tip #8: Pretend that you don’t know how to use the copy machine or create a pdf.
• Tip #12: Keep your cell phone on during class and all meetings, and let it ring several times before stepping out to answer it.

Read her full list here.  Of course, Professor Crawford's list is far from complete, so Kim Krawiec at The Faculty Lounge came up with a list of her own, including the following:

1.  Make the support staff mark your exams and papers.  Why should an international superstar waste time on menial activities like grading?

4.  If you burp, sneeze, or say something important to the local media (like “fraud is bad”), make sure that your school’s website reports on each instance, thwarting attempts to highlight colleagues’ scholarly accomplishments.

5.  Don’t use your own office for media tapings.  Instead, demand the use of scarce classroom, library, or other common spaces.  In fact, insist on the dean’s suite.

6.  Busy people must multitask to get everything done.  When on a symposium or conference panel, text in full view of audience members and fellow panelists. If you receive an amusing communication, laugh out loud while others are presenting. 

7.  Another panel tip: demand to present first and then leave as soon as you speak without waiting to hear your co-panelists.  Alternatively, demand to go last, then show up late, just before your start time.  One instance may not be enough to demonstrate your busyness.  Make it a hard and fast rule.

8.  Time, page, and other limits are for less important people.  When giving a faculty workshop, send a paper that is at least 100 single-spaced pages, and spend the entire hour presenting it.  Why leave time for questions?  Your paper’s already perfect.

10.  Don’t try to remember the names of students, staff, or untenured faculty.  You’re too busy.

Read her full list here.

Internet Vices

In his very clever Internet Vices cartoon Patrick Moberg captures how addictive social media can be:

 

Visit his page here.

Enough with the political sex scandals

The Australian media is currently salivating over an alleged sex scandal involving the South Australian Premier, Mike Rann (read about it here).  However, I don't see how this is anyone's business but his own:

In my rant I refer to this blog post by Trevor Cook "Mike Rann and the new puritanism".